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The M’s look to salvage a series split with Texas tonight behind Wade LeBlanc, the guy who’s tossed 26+ IP as a starter with an ERA well below 2, and with a K:BB ratio nearing 5. LeBlanc still doesn’t look overpowering or even powering at all, but his superb control and…uh…the other things he must be doing contribute to a remarkably solid starter. No, he’s not going to keep up THIS level of performance, but he’s been a critical part of the M’s success in May, when injuries and ineffectiveness in the rotation plus a bit of an offensive slump could’ve easily spoiled the M’s season.

Mike Minor was the high-floor 1st round pick of the Braves back in 2009, and he reached the majors in 2010 – exactly what you want from a college-trained polish-over-raw-stuff type pick. He had 2.5 solid years in the Atlanta rotation before injuries and inconsistency led the Braves to look elsewhere for back-of-the-rotation depth. Their big rebuild probably played a part, too. In any event, after rehabbing from TJ surgery, he joined a number of formerly-hurt starters in Kansas City in 2016. He made it up to the big club in 2017 as a reliever, and enjoyed a brilliant season, racking up 2.1 fWAR and 2.5 RA9 WAR thanks to improved velocity (he sat at 90 as a starter, but was nearly 95 last year out of the pen) and a sharp slider.

The Rangers saw an opportunity to get an underpriced starter by picking up Minor and converting him back to the rotation. It’s a good plan – Carlos Carrasco is perhaps the best known starter-to-reliever-to-much-better-starter conversions, so there’s a precedent here – and to Minor/Texas’ credit, a decent chunk of that increased velocity has held over to his new role. He’s produced an exemplary K:BB ratio thanks to the best walk rate of his career. It’s just that none of the other results have been good or even so-so.

His slider’s no longer missing bats, and his change-up’s only ok. His change-of-pace curveball has been great in small doses, but the big problem is his fastball, which batters are slugging .652 on coming into tonight’s game. Part of this seems to be a change in his fastball approach; he’s gone from using it away from lefties and in on righties to using it up and away to both in 2018. His fly ball rate isn’t materially different than it was back in 2012 or 2013, but of course the ball and thus the entire GAME has changed since then. As a fly-baller in a hitter’s park, he’s paid the price in dingers – something he didn’t have to worry about as much as a fly-baller in 2012-13 Turner Field.

Safeco’s playing much more neutral to pitcher-friendly this year, much to my confusion. After a year and a half of yelling at anyone who would listen (and thank you all for listening) that the park was much more HR-friendly than previously believed, and even than some statcast park factors would tell you, the park’s listing back the other way. Like most parks in 2018, expected wOBA has been higher than actual wOBA at Safeco. In fact, Safeco has the 7th largest gap between expected and actual production. Of course, Safeco has ALWAYS had a gap between expected and actual performance – that’s what the Marine Layer does. What’s changed is both the magnitude of the gap AND the frequency with which balls are barreled up. The M’s pitchers have something to do with that, though the same pattern appears if we just look at road pitchers. Safeco gave up a ton of barrels in 2016 (and 2015, judging by the insane number of HRs hit), less in 2017, and less still in 2018.

Welcome back, Dee Gordon. The speedster came off the DL for his fractured toe today; Gordon Beckham was optioned back to Tacoma.

Tacoma, Arkansas and Modesto all lost last night, but Clinton roughed up 18 year old Jairo Solis for 5 runs in 1/3 of an inning to avoid the org sweep. Colin Rodgers, Ryne Inman and Max Povse are among tonight’s starters.

The M’s couldn’t quite put away the Rangers last night, and their bullpen slipped up a bit for the first time in what seems like weeks. Still, they’re the overwhelming favorites again today, as they’ve got their ace on the hill against Matt Moore, activated from the DL today (taking the 25-man spot of Austin Bibens-Dirkx, the guy who started last night’s game).

If you were into MLB prospects around 2010-11, you’ll remember Matt Moore, the kid from New Mexico whose rise to MLB ace seemed assured. You’d find old heads who’d mutter “There’s no such thing as a pitching prospect,” but then, Moore wasn’t a *pitching* prospect. He was a *legend* prospect. In 2010, he struck out 208 hitters in 144 2/3 IP. The following year, he K’d another 210 in 155 IP in the minors, then added 15 in 9 1/3 regular season innings with Tampa. His fastball sat in the mid-90s, and had unearthly armside run. He backed it up with a hard, nigh-unhittable curve and a solid change-up.

The Rays signed him to what seemed like an absurdly team-friendly extension that off-season in an echo of their extension for Evan Longoria. They were always going to move David Price, but they made a commitment – a somewhat tenuous one, but it’s the Rays – to Moore. He was decent in 2012 and 2013, but injuries and control problems limited his overall production. Even by 2013, his velocity was noticeably lower, and then he blew out his elbow, missing most of 2014 and 2015.

Since then, he’s been a pale shadow of his former self. Like the rest of the Giants, he was terrible last year, but even at $10M in salary, he seemed like a decent bounce-back candidate for the Rangers this year. That has…uh, not been the case. His K:BB numbers are bad, his BABIP is terrible, and he’s not stranding runners. Thus, his FIP is below replacement level, and his ERA is much, much worse than that.

It’s odd – he still gets plenty of swinging strikes, both with his now pedestrian fastball and also with his change – but he’s less and less able to turn those strikes into strikeouts. He can get to 0-1 counts, but batters are hitting .298/.371/.481 after going through an 0-1 count. Like many lefties, Moore’s faced an overwhelmingly right-handed set of batters in recent years, but it seems less important now; he doesn’t have dominant stuff even to lefties anymore, if he ever did. Lefties actually have hit him harder over his career.

The Rainiers dropped a 4-3 contest in Las Vegas last night, with local kid Tim Peterson getting the save. Immediately after the game, Peterson got the call up to Mets; I’m rooting for him after seeing what seemed like half of Puyallup come out and see him on the Rainiers last homestand. Tonight, Casey Lawrence takes the hill at Cheney as the Rainiers host Salt Lake and 2017 surprise Parker Bridwell.

Arkansas won a 16-10 slugfest against Midland, getting a HR from Braden Bishop. Not a great pitching performance from Nathan Bannister, but hey, the offense pounded out 21 hits. Anthony Misiewicz starts tonight’s game against Logan Shore, who made his AA debut against the Travelers back on the 24th.

Clinton lost 4-2 to first-place Quad Cities (Astros affiliate). The second-place LumberKings hand the ball to Oliver Jaskie, who’s struggled thus far in 2018, giving up too many hits for a decent K rate to matter. He’ll be opposed by Venezuelan 18-year old Jairo Solis, making his 2018 debut. MLB has him as the Astros’ #12 prospect.

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you’re familiar with me rambling on at length about home runs and their increasing importance for run scoring. Since the recent HR explosion began (now confirmed to be largely due to a change in the ball), the M’s in particular have suffered as they’ve given up a disporportionate number of dingers, which has dwarfed some real improvement in other areas. That is, K:BB ratio is wonderful, but it’s less wonderful if any improvement in controlling the zone is accompanied by a flurry of home runs, and unfortunately, that’s where the M’s found themselves.

In April, things looked much the same: the M’s had the second-highest HR/9 behind Cincinnati. Their record wasn’t too bad, but the dingers and some dinger-related blowouts meant that their run differential wasn’t great. Their offense hit enough to overcome a sub-par rotation, at least when James Paxton wasn’t pitching. How has May looked? Really, really different. The M’s allowed *the fewest HRs* in all of baseball, and that’s enabled them to post the highest fWAR in the game, just ahead of the historically-great Astros (technically, the Astros were better on a rate basis, but still…Holy $&%^). The M’s had a weakness, and not only has that issue stopped being a problem, it’s a massive, out-of-nowhere strength. What the hell happened here?

There are, of course, a number of possibilities, and I’ve listed a few in the title. I don’t have a definitive answer, so don’t go searching for one. When dealing with month splits, you’re not going to have any kind of clear-cut, verifiable conclusions: there’s not enough data. That said, we can walk through a couple of possibilities and see what we see.

1: The M’s Changed Their Approach

To look into this, I got each team’s pitch mix as measured by Pitch Info from Fangraphs. I looked at 2017, as well. There are a number of ways to see who’s throwing a lot of fastballs, as there are multiple fastball types – four-seamers, sinkers, and then cutters/splitters. For a lot of analysis I do, I typically limit things to four-seam and sinkers (and, as applicable, the old category of two-seamers). But here, it might be valuable to look at cutters as well. While some cutters are definitely more breaking ball-like, others really are just versions of a fastball, as someone like Nick Vincent (or Kenley Jansen) shows. So, we can do it both ways.

What you see is that there are a few teams that are especially reliant on one type of fastball or another, and then there are teams that have really moved away from fastballs and have shifted towards breaking balls and change-ups. The Pirates are a good example of the former, while the Yankees attracted a lot of attention as the exemplar of the latter approach. In 2017, the M’s were really middle-of-the-road: they ranked 15th in four-seam+sinker usage, and 10th if you include cutters. They used a four-seam or sinker about 56% of the time. THat’s dramatically more than the Yankees’ 41%, but *everyone* was dramatically more than that. It was well shy of the Pirates’ 63% usage, which was driven by the the highest rate of sinkers in the game. For four-seamers, the Rockies led the way, something I mentioned when the M’s faced them last year – they thumbed their nose at the HR explosion by throwing a ton of four-seam fastballs *in Coors* and posted surprisingly low HRs-allowed numbers. The M’s bet big on their OF defense last year, and thus prized pitchers who threw rising four-seamers (and would’ve thrown even more if Drew Smyly had been healthy), so they ranked 6th in four-seamers, and quite low in sinkers. They were middle of the pack in cutters, but there are quite a bit fewer of those.

In 2018, their pitch mix has changed markedly. Their four-seamer usage has plunged from 6th down to 27th, and while their sinker rate has increased, it hasn’t offset the decline in four-seamers. Thus, if we measure *just* four-seamers and sinkers, the M’s go from a middle-of-the-pack team to the 25th-ranked team for FB usage. But a fairly large chunk of those missing/eschewed four-seamers have become cutters (thanks Mike Leake and Marco Gonzales), so now the philosophical discussion about what bucket to put cutters in becomes pretty relevant. If you put them in the fastball bin, the M’s overall FB usage rate hasn’t changed *at all*. It was at 62.6% in 2017, and it’s at 62.9% now. If you put them in the breaking ball bin, the story’s pretty clearly one of the M’s ditching FBs in favor of bendy pitches – even if that story’s complicated by the fact that cutters are perhaps the least bendy of pitches. It’s also relevant to us in that the pitch classified as the cutter is one of James Paxton’s favored pitches. HE uses it as a breaking ball, whereas Leake/Gonzales use it more as a fastball. In any event, it seems relevant that the M’s rotation is full of pitchers who throw one, even if they exemplify the fact that “cutter” is something of a catch-all term.

Still, isn’t there some kind of impact from turning four-seamers into cutters? Yes, there certainly should be. The league has put up a .320 wOBA on cutters, compared to a .339 mark against four-seamers and .340 against sinkers. They typically have some platoon split issues, and that’s true here, but there’s some evidence they’re harder to drive. The average exit velocity off of a cutter is a full 2 MPH lower than against sinkers, and a touch more than that against four-seamers. A lower percentage of balls in play against cutters were classified as “barrels” by MLB than against four-seamers (though here it’s worth noting that sinkers went as barrels even less often). So, platoon splits be damned, there’s some evidence that a shift like this should result in lower HRs. And that’s what we’ve seen.

Still, even just limiting things to four-seamers/sinkers, the M’s haven’t had the most dramatic change in approach – that title probably goes to the Rockies, who’ve cut FA+SI usage by over 11 percentage points. Like the M’s, they’re throwing more cutters to fill the gap. The Cardinals and Tigers are neck and neck as teams who’ve shifted away from fastballs AND cutters, while the Twins, Cubs, and especially Braves have moved the other direction. If you think of cutters more as breaking balls, the M’s have closed the bendy gap with the Yankees, just without the wave of sliders: the M’s throw a decent number of curves as well as cutters and change-ups.

But to assess if this is responsible for the M’s change in HRs-allowed, we need to see if they’ve changed their approach within 2018, right? Again, small numbers, but there’s some evidence that they have. In April, they threw 51% FA+SIs, while in May that’s dropped a bit to just under 50. That’s obviously not enough to account for the sharp drop in HRs, so the bigger story is lower HRs per fastball. Still, it’s notable that the M’s are throwing more curves than ever before.

Verdict: It’s probably not the change in FB mix or pitch mix overall, but this bears watching. The M’s thought they could throw a bunch of four-seamers in Safeco, got burned, and now aren’t daring teams to elevate four-seamers anymore. I like that.

One of the logical consequences of a league with superteams AND an unbalanced schedule is that you should see a number of runs where teams give up runs by the bushel and others where they post higher fWAR than the Astros over the course of a month. Is this what’s going on?

Again, it’s going to be impossible to answer, but let’s try something simple. The M’s have faced several teams in May: the A’s (6 times), the Angels (3X), the Tigers (7X), the Twins (4X) the Jays (3X) and Rangers (3X). Those teams have homered varying amounts, but if we simply divide HRs per game, we get a rough and dirty expected number of dingers. If the A’s homered their customary amount (1.22 per game), they’d be expected to hit 7.33 against the M’s in 6 games. They actually hit 4. Doing this for the entire schedule, we get an expected number of HRs allowed of 28.35 versus an actual number of just 18. Did luck play a role? Sure. Did the Tigers/Twins being two of the worst power-hitting teams help? Sure. But even with that, you’d have expected the M’s to give up a few more.

The problem with this theory is that the M’s haven’t ONLY played the Twins/Tigers, as much as I’d like that. The A’s/Angels really are good power hitting teams, and the M’s held those teams in check. Things will change in June as the M’s face a much tougher slate of teams, but it surprised ME to see how many games the M’s had against some teams that are decent at hitting dingers during this brilliant run of pitching form.

Verdict: They played some bad hitting teams, but they played some pretty good ones, too. Not buying this.

3: Maybe this is just luck, right?

By statcast’s wOBA-xwOBA measure – actual results versus predicted results using launch angle and exit speed – the M’s have been pretty fortunate in May, with a .317 actual wOBA allowed versus an expected .372. The M’s defense is absolutely a part of this story, as their BABIP-allowed plunged this month. Given what we’ve seen in recent games, is it possible that Safeco’s playing more as a pitcher’s part again? Er, no – the M’s have been “luckier” this month in road games. Paxton’s no-no in Toronto’s a perfect example where some very hard hit balls were reeled in by M’s defenders in defiance of your nerdy “hit percentage” values.

Still, even if you think xwOBA measures luck (as opposed to something else), the real story is that the M’s actual and expected wOBA-allowed dropped *so bloody much* compared to April. The M’s were nearly as “lucky” by the same measure that month, it’s just that both numbers were shifted upwards.

Verdict: Yes and no. Yes, the M’s have been fortunate this month, but they seem to be pitching better, too. Their K-BB% is better, driven by a decline in walks.

Things will get tougher, but for now it’s worth noting that the team’s rotation has stepped up at just the right time, staving off a decline in offense. They’ve beaten the teams they should beat, sure, but they’ve fared better against some relatively tough teams as well. I still don’t know how, as even the shift away from four-seamers isn’t enough to explain this. Leaguewide, the HR rate has grown with the temperature from April to May, but it’s tumbled for the M’s. Long may this continue; I’d love to think that the M’s really figured something out, even if I’m still not sure what that thing is.

The M’s are 30-20 after 50 games, and while you can point to an easier schedule in May, the club’s pitching seems to be improving at just the right time. The bullpen got better yesterday, my grumpy diatribe notwithstanding. I’d love the M’s to start growing their own, but I get the sense of urgency that being-in-wild-card-position brings.

I’m out in Eastern Washington, driving through small towns from Republic to Nespelem to Grand Coulee and I have to say it was notable how many M’s hats/shirts/stickers I saw. The whole region wants to believe, and probably *does* believe in the team more than your scribe, whose love is unconditional yet guarded. But seeing those hats in remote Washington, as my daughter spotted a Felix shirsey makes me realize that you’ve got to stop worrying about development and love Wade LeBlanc’s devil magic.

By now, you probably know that I don’t quite get how the Mariners front office evaluates players or their overall organizational strategy. This isn’t about being ‘pessimistic’ or ‘optimistic’ or being a contrarian for the sake of it. This is me not really understanding some fundamental principles that are clearly pretty important to Jerry Dipoto and company.

It’s with that background that I have to report I’m again pretty flummoxed by Dipoto’s latest trade, sending out two pitching prospects for Tampa reliever Alex Colome and CF Denard Span.

There’s no doubt that Robinson Cano’s suspension left the team in a bind. Having decided to move Dee Gordon back to 2B, the team is going to have to figure out what to do once the suspension’s over. Acquiring Span makes it clear that Gordon can stay at 2B, but it also freezes out Guillermo Heredia, who’s been one of the M’s best hitters and the surprise of 2018 to date.

Colome, who throws a four-seamer at 96, but uses his 90 MPH cutter over 60% of the time, can probably help get the M’s to Edwin Diaz, but he’s not a lights out reliever. Juan Nicasio *should* be better, and Dan Altavilla should be similar.

In this trade, the M’s are giving up a close to the majors starter in Andrew Moore and promising lower level starter Tommy Romero, who’s probably been the biggest breakout of 2018 in the M’s minors; he’s slmost certainly the biggest breakout *starter*. This has been Dipoto’s preference ever since he arrived, trading SP depth for set-up relievers. It’s just that the M’s track record in such deals is really, really bad. As I’ve written, the low-level depth the M’s have moved fairly quickly turned into interesting prospects while the set-up guys – with the possible exception of James Pazos – have crashed and burned.

But again, my issue with this isn’t the track record; Joaquin Benoit won’t make Alex Colome pitch worse. Instead, it’s the constant churn in organizational depth in order to make fairly minor improvements. Denard Span’s having a good year, and if his patience stays this good, he’ll help a line-up that could stand to walk more often. But he’s 34 and not cheap for someone who may be a platoon OF. Colome is fine, but as an arb-eligible bet having trouble with walks AND who now has the closer label, this seems like poor value for Moore/Romero (not that those two are household names).

I know the M’s had money to spend and I get wanting to push your chips in after this great start, but I’m just kind of stunned that *this* is what the M’s thought they needed. I don’t want to always pick at Dipoto’s trades. I don’t want to rehash the history. I just think there are a couple of things that would make this trade make sense, but neither of them are all that pleasant:
1: The M’s don’t believe in Guillermo Heredia at all or
2: The M’s recognize that they simply can’t develop starting pitchers and have essentially stopped trying, instead flipping them whenever they draw interest.

The M’s play host to Minnesota as the M’s continue to play the AL Central pretty often in the early season. James Paxton takes the mound and looks to keep his hot streak going. Opposite him is Fernando Romero, a Twins signing out of the DR in 2011. He attracted some attention, but then lost the best part of two seasons to Tommy John surgery, which may be why he doesn’t have a big national profile. He’s been intriguing in a few starts for Minnesota, mixing a high-velo sinker with a sharp slider.

In a way, Romero reminds me a bit of Edwin Diaz back in 2015. Back then, Sugar was a live-armed starter with a great sinking fastball. In the futures game that year, his fastball was notably sinker-ish, and distinct from the four-seamer he’s used in the big leagues. Moving to the pen clearly worked for him, but Romero is something of a window into what Diaz could have been. It’s not a perfect comp, as those don’t exist, but just from a movement/arsenal/velo point of view, it kind of works.

The M’s go for a sweep in Oakland behind Felix and a bullpen that has to be feeling a bit better about itself than it did a week or two ago. After writing about how the A’s can really hit but can’t pitch, the A’s have pitched brilliantly, but lost two straight low-scoring games as the M’s simply pitched a bit better. Mike Leake and Marco Gonzales have shown flashes of effectiveness, but their overall season lines weren’t all that encouraging. But two straight throttlings of a very good line up bodes well for the M’s, even if their offense has been mostly silent.

Injuries have had a lot to do with that, of course. Mitch Haniger told reporters yesterday that he’d be fine, and ready to play today, and indeed he is. Nelson Cruz is in there as well, so the M’s are at about as close to full strength as they can legally be right now. Cruz seems to have shown the aftereffects of the various knocks he’s taken, so it’ll be interesting to see if Haniger goes through the same process. The M’s are going to need someone other than Guillermo Heredia to step up, though again, as long as the M’s rotation stays hot, they don’t need MUCH more than Guillermo and even modest contributions from Haniger and Healy.

The A’s start sinker/slider guy Josh Lucas, who came up in the Cardinals system and was traded to the A’s just after opening day this year. Lucas throws a sinker at 92 from a lowish arm slot that’s pushed out towards 3B, and which features a ton of armside run. In his first game for Oakland, though, his primary pitch was actually his slider, which he’s thrown 55% of the time. The pitch moves mostly horizontally vis a vis the sinker, and both induce plenty of ground balls. With his approach and 91-92 MPH velocity, I suppose it’s not a shock that he was seen as a potential ROOGY/bullpen arm, but he misses a few bats, and he’s shown just enough deception to be decent against lefties. It’s that deception that may allow him to start longer term, and it’s a good example of the A’s picking up on a player who may have been unfairly pigeonholed as a non-elite reliever.

Pitches like sinkers and sliders really DO have platoon split issues, and a guy with a low arm slot, in general, should have more platoon issues than an over-the-top hurler. But the A’s have been stockpiling these guys – think Andrew Triggs, Sean Manaea, etc. – and seeing if they work in the rotation. The success that guys like Chris Sale have had certainly helps embolden a team to try this, even if Triggs/Manaea/Lucas have a fraction of Sale’s stuff/velo. But I think the success of some bullpen arms has opened the door a bit, too: Darren O’Day wouldn’t seem like someone who’d be really tough on opposite-handed batters, but he is. There are ways to overcome the inherent weaknesses of certain pitch types and angles. So, like, maybe focus on those things rather than targeting pitchers who are more traditional/”projectable” and throw from a high 3/4 slot and have a really good 4 pitch mix.

It’s a different strategy than the Rays’ starting Sergio Romo/Andrew Kittredge, with very different impacts on player compensation. I’d say it’s “better” but we all know if Lucas (or whoever) works out, they’ll actually get a decent paycheck from whoever the A’s trade them to, not from the A’s organization itself.

Anthony Misiewicz and Arkansas take on A’s affiliate Midland tonight, with A’s prospect Logan Shore starting for the Rockhounds. Red hot Ljay Newsome leads Modesto against San Jose, and Raymond Kerr starts for Clinton as they play host to the Burlington Bees.

The M’s are riding high after an unlikely series win against the Tigers. The offense wasn’t great in the series, but it had a brilliant sense of timing, and that was enough.

Now, the M’s take on the surging A’s, whose position players rank just ahead of the M’s thanks in part to better defending and a great walk rate. That said, the M’s have the superior batting line as they trade a bunch of walks for singles, and singles are simply better than walks. I think everyone assumed the A’s would have a decent line-up, but even through the struggles of Matt Olson and now Dustin Fowler, the fact that they’re able to crack the top 10 in baseball bodes well for them.

Still, the reason they’re now a couple of games over .500 is that they’ve figured out a way to pitch a little bit. Sean Manaea’s emergence has been big, but as the M’s know well, you can’t rely on a single pitcher and run away with the division/wild card. It certainly isn’t the result of steps forward from Kendall Graveman, who was demoted to AAA. Their oft-injured starters Brett Anderson and Andrew Triggs are, uh, injured as well. Instead, the rotation’s received big contributions from Daniel Mengden, who’s turning the clock back to the early 90s with his low-K, vanishingly-low-BB approach, and today’s starter, Trevor Cahill.

Cahill came up with the A’s as a cerebral, pitchability righty who overcame not-so-great strikeout and walk numbers by inducing ground balls and using his spacious park (and the old baseball) to avoid HRs. After moving to Arizona, he had a couple of solid years, but a couple of awful BABIP years combined with a stubbornly high walk rate forced him to bounce between teams as a frustratingly ineffective journeyman. By 2015, he’d lost his starting gig. That turned out to be a blessing, as he reinvented himself as a reliever with the Cubs. Though his walk rate was still high, his revamped change-up and curveball proved difficult to square up, and his K rate soared. He moved back to the rotation last year with San Diego, and his new higher velocity mostly stuck around – he’s now throwing harder than he did when he came up with Oakland years ago.

His change has been a revelation, and it’s helped him overcome his natural platoon splits. He was solid against lefties early on, though as a sinker/cutter guy, it wasn’t a shock when lefties started to torch him in 2014-15. His change has been effective in part due to its drop – it functions a lot like a splitter, in that it breaks armside but has sharp downward movement compared to his fastballs. His results with it weren’t great last year, but this year, it looks like he’s refined it: he’s throwing it harder, but it’s actually got more downward movement than in 2016 or 2017. The fact that it’s got more drop AND more velo suggests this is break and not just gravity acting on the thing. It’s been his best pitch by far this year, and it’s a big reason his GB% is above 60% while his K rate is over 28% – a level even Cahill probably never could imagine in his first go-round with Oakland.

All told, Oakland still scares me. Sure, the M’s figure to have a bit better pitching overall, but the emergence of Blake Treinen and an A’s development system that is cranking out complementary pieces means they’ll probably stick around on the fringes of the wild card hunt. Sure, a better A’s club can help out by beating the Angels every now and again, but the M’s need to rack up wins against the teams they *should* beat. The A’s were in that bucket before the year started, and to be fair, the M’s have fared pretty well against them. But the A’s aren’t an easy source of victories this year, and that may prove problematic as the M’s schedule gets harder and harder after a comparatively easy May. You can flip this around, too, if you want to be optimistic – and that’s a common feeling in M’s fandom right now. Beating the A’s is good practice for the M’s staff. Not every team out there is as toothless as the Cabrera-less Tigers, but then, the M’s pitchers have some room for error as the A’s starters aren’t world beaters. Wins are wins, and I’m perfectly happy if the M’s victories over the A’s are more indicative of a new, effective approach and not merely the result of beating up on inferior competition. The A’s scare me, and scare me going forward (until they tear it down in a few years), but at this stage, you’ve still got to give the slight advantage to Seattle.

Soooo, the latest starter to hit the DL for the M’s is 2B Dee Gordon, who fractured his toe on Sunday – or perhaps aggravated an issue that first appeared after fouling a pitch off his foot back in Toronto. Dan Vogelbach has been recalled; he’s been great in AAA, hitting a HR on Sunday and slugging .711 over 83 ABs for Tacoma.

M’s affiliate starters include Chase De Jong, Darren McCaughan, and undrafted free agent Clay Chandler, who’s been pretty effective. Andrew Moore gave up 2 dingers last night, but got the win in Arkansas’ win over Tulsa. Christian Bergman was sharp against El Paso, but the R’s lost 4-2 when Luis Urias hit a 2R HR against Tacoma reliever Tucker Healy who I keep forgetting plays in the M’s org now. Clinton got an extra-inning, walk-off win against Burlington; closer Sam Delaplane got the win going 2 IP with 5 Ks, giving him 30 strikeouts in 18 IP on the year.

The M’s close out this series against Detroit with a game against inconsistent-yet-tough lefty Francisco Liriano. Over the course of his long career, Liriano has been pretty consistently brutal on his fellow southpaws, with lefties posting a sub-.600 OPS over 1,500+ plate appearances, while righties are hitting a comparatively robust .728. On the wOBA scale, that’s .270 vs. lefties and .322 against righties.

Nelson Cruz is getting an off day after getting plunked yet again last night. In the past, that might be a concern, as the righty Cruz was key to making left-handed opponents work/suffer/struggle. Now, though, it’s a team effort. The M’s are one of the best teams in baseball against lefties, with guys like Mitch Haniger leading the way, but he’s got help from 1B Ryon Healy, who’ll take Nellie’s cleanup spot today. Healy’s still something of a limited hitter if you ask me, but he’s displayed a very consistent ability to hit lefties. He is, in a sense, the inverse of Liriano. Streaky, platoon splitted all to hell, but sometimes that’s what you need.

Liriano came up as an extremely hard thrower, but well over a decade later, his fastball velocity’s more average at about 92. He was always known for his hard, sinking slider, and that’s still his outpitch. Lower velo has changed its shape a bit, but he still throws it to lefties and righties alike, and it’s still hard to square up. Not impossible, though – from time to time, it’s a real HR pitch – he’s given up 46 HRs on it in the pitch fx era. He also throws a changeup, though the so-so development of the pitch and his overall consistency issues make it a third-or-fourth pitch.

He came up with a four-seam fastball and a sinker, both of which had tons of horizontal movement thanks to his lowish arm slot and tons of spin, but he’s transitioned to being more of a pure sinker/slider pitcher these days. That combined with a few years under Ray Searage’s tutelage in Pittsburgh means that he’s a ground ball pitcher, though less so than he was 3-4 years ago. The way he spots his fastballs hasn’t changed over that time. His slider usage is pretty standard, too, with the pitch breaking down and in to righties, and low and away from lefties.

I’m going to be up at the Rainiers game today, where Casey Lawrence leads the R’s against Las Vegas. Rob Whalen got the win last night in Tacoma’s 10-6 win. A 5 run inning game Las Vegas a 6-4 lead, but Tacoma pulled away late. Danny Muno and Chris Herrman homered for Tacoma.

Tulsa beat up on Arkansas 8-2, as the Drillers got a HR from former D-Backs prospect Peter O’Brien. The Travs’ Joe DeCarlo hit a 2-run shot in the 9th to escape the shutout.

Visalia beat Modesto 5-3, but Evan White hit his 2nd home run for the Nuts. Kyle Lewis singled and Seth Elledge pitched a scoreless inning in relief.

Clinton lost to Cedar Rapids 6-4, spoiling a good start from Raymond Kerr; Adonis De la Cruz had a bad time in the 7th/8th. The Rapids are a Twins farm team, so their catcher is David Banuelos, the former M’s top-10 prospect who went to the Twins org for bonus pool space. He’s been awful at the plate this year, though he was always known most for defense/leading the pitching staff.

Max Povse’s been demoted back to AA, and he gets the start today for the Travelers as they take on Tulsa. Danny Garcia and Modesto take on Visalia tonight, while Clinton’s TBD takes on Cedar Rapids.